Yah, really if i want to have Type safety, then why i need a new language why not to use Java instead?! especially when there is GWT an excellent transpiler, and for elemental even it is still in beta it works great, i already try to use it when ever possible, and when something is missing in the beta version JsInterop complement it and the changes normally and not huge and easy to maintain.

While searching i found this
http://www.gwtproject.org/meetingnotes.html

it might not be detailed enough i agree but it tells that there is something going on, it would nice if few links presented there for github projects and youtube videos and presentations for those meetings.

I used to write lots of generators, but i was able to move every thing to apt without too much effort, and tools Harald Pehl mentioned ^^^ are really very very helpful.

and in the GWT i have seen many projects started to use Processors instead of generators, for GWT itself , i dont think the remove GWT.create and the generators right now from current version 2.8.1 is a good decision, there is still lots if projects that depends on them and this should version should not broke that.

GWT is not a framework to start with, you can actually say that GWT is a Transpiler that compiles Java Source Code into JavaScript source code, and every thing else in GWT is just a tool that helps you to write java code that can be transpiled into JavaScript source code, i think that why the name GWTToolKit is a fitting name, and the best thing you should know about GWT is that it works, GWT might be old but still good enough to survive the changes of 10+ years in the wild and will survive even more.

it might be hard to start with GWT but once you get used to it you know its good.

Now to the Js world, when you said exploding that was a good description, because it is really exploding since every few months someone invent a new mine, its like a mines land you might at any time step on one and then booooom, luckily we wont lose a leg here, but really all these frameworks are poping up because they cant settle on good framework that really works, they are shiny, they are fun to work with, they are good for  trying things out, or to build a small application for my brother who sits in his office and want something to organize his few excel sheets.

But try to build a real enterprise application with these and deal with customers who would ask you to do nice and ugly things and you will pay the bill.

The Js world is still evolving - Just like our mother earth when it started to take shape - erupting all the time.

GWT is like mother earth in it current state..

Do you think that we earth is already dead, or do you think that we already moved to live on the moon, or we are just preparing for that?

i will refer to my reply on this topic
http://gwtcon.userecho.com/topics/8-better-debugging-experience/

a good practice is to keep the need for debugging in the browser to the minimum, you will still need to debug in the browser from time to time, i still do that, but following a good MVP pattern you can isolate most of your code into classes that can run and debug from a simple junit test case -not even a GWTTestCase- or a main method directly in the IDE, i do this all time and it is pretty useful, but you should know that this approach needs a good structure of code that allows you to stub the parts that you are not interested in debugging.

I do agree with you and such basic overview could be a great thing to have.